


The Floorplan

by InkandType



Series: Blueprints for a Successful Relationship [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Architects, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-03
Updated: 2014-07-03
Packaged: 2018-02-07 08:32:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1892295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InkandType/pseuds/InkandType
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              
<p></p><div class="center">
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  <p>    <img/></p>
</div>Lannister Associates is Westeros’ premiere, full-service architecture firm, and Brienne Tarth is the youngest builder—man or woman—to be made a construction team foreperson. She loves her job, and for the most part, she loves the team she works with. What doesn’t she love? The company’s overly smug, overly attractive co-CEO, Jaime Lannister, who lives to make her life difficult.<p>When a wayward cow, an unforeseen rainstorm, and a surprising article of clothing enter the picture, things take an unexpected turn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Floorplan

**Author's Note:**

> This is my response to the new JaimeBrienne.com board's fic challenge. It was supposed to be a simple, 500 word story prompted by the phrase "ruffled panties," but clearly the plot bunnies had ideas of their own.

She’d known the long drive to Winterfell wasn’t going to be particularly pleasant, but Brienne Tarth had never been one to complain. She was the youngest person to lead a construction team with Lannister Associates, and she’d actually worked her way up the ladder, starting as a lowly carpentry apprentice. Bumps, bruises, the occasional broken finger or toe – they were all in a day’s work. Riding along in a luxury sedan to get to a VIP’s estate certainly shouldn’t have been a hardship.

However, she hadn’t counted on said luxury sedan being driven by her boss – a man she found as obnoxious as he was attractive.

Jaime Lannister was rarely at any of their building sites, so despite years of being a part of his company, Brienne had rarely worked directly with him. She’d had plenty of encounters with him at countless office meetings and events, but he was seldom out in the field. He’d show up when they broke ground for a few hours and then again when the projects were all but done. Otherwise, he stayed holed up in the Lannister Associates offices with his blueprints and fancy client meetings.

Brienne, on the other hand, was almost always working at one building site or another. Clients generally preferred to speak with one of the polished architects as opposed to the grunts who actually built everything. Frankly, considering the temperaments of the clients she’d been unlucky enough to meet, she was just fine letting the Lannisters do all the talking.

So when she received a rather cryptic note demanding she attend a client meeting with the Starks in Winterfell, Brienne was more than a little surprised. The message indicated she should be dressed professionally and that a company car would be around to pick her up early in the morning. She was outright shocked when a sleek, red Audi RS6 rolled up outside her apartment with Jaime himself at the wheel.

Her best friend Margaery might have described him as ‘a hottie,’ but to Brienne, Jaime Lannister was something else entirely. He looked the way she imagined every fairytale prince would. Golden hair, fine, elegant features, tall (though still a few inches shorter than her) with lean muscles beneath tan skin that spoke of plenty of time spent in the sun. Since he was so rarely on site, she guessed his rays were all caught on a beach somewhere at one of the expensive resorts off the coast of Lys, Volantis, or another equally cost prohibitive locale.

Her boss was also a massive pain in the ass. He seemed to absolutely revel in taking the piss out of her every moment they were in one another’s company. It didn’t matter if they were in front of everyone at the annual company holiday party or alone in the elevator before a department meeting. At times, his teasing seemed almost friendly—an attempt to draw her into conversation, but a lifetime of being the butt of men’s jokes made her wary of him. Even if there were moments when she wanted to send a rejoinder his way, she kept mum, bent on keeping their interactions strictly professional.

And so the endless car ride was an almost nonstop stream of one-sided insults under the guise of polite conversation. After over four hours, the only things that kept Brienne from strangling the life from the man in the driver’s seat were her overly tight seatbelt and her desire to keep her job.

Jamie had just made yet another cutting remark about her dour expression putting off would-be clients when it happened. With their focus firmly fixed on each other, they didn’t notice the random bovine roadblock until the last second. Jaime’s swift jerk to the steering wheel resulted in a sudden meeting between their car and with what was surely the deepest ditch in all of Westeros.

Brienne had never ventured very far north, so she was utterly unprepared for the vicious, unpredictable weather. It had started out bright and sunny as they left the car behind to trek to the nearest village, but it then morphed into a mild drizzle when they realized the runaway cow was clearly not from any nearby farm. By the time they figured out that they were stranded in the last uncivilized wilderness with no real shelter, food, or cell service, freezing sleet was pouring down.

All of which explained how she ended up in a small, dilapidated barn, drenched and shaking like a leaf in her ill-fitting suit, staring at the broad expanse of Jaime Lannister’s naked back in stunned silence.

The only light within the decaying building came from an old, battery-powered lantern, which cast dark shadows along the walls and along his muscles in a disturbingly mesmerizing manner. It was only when his hands moved to undo his belt that Brienne was finally able to make a sound.

“What on earth are you doing?”

Jaime threw a quick look over his shoulder, while he continued to remove his remaining clothes. “I never took you for dim, Madam Foreman—or should I say Fore _person_? Far be it for me to be accused of heteronormativity. What does it look like I’m doing?”

Brienne sputtered for a moment before spinning around to glare at the wall. “ _Why_ are you stripping, you unmitigated ass?” Her jaw clenched as she shivered. She belatedly reminded herself that calling her boss an ass was likely the first step in getting fired, but she was so cold and tired and miserable, she couldn’t really bring herself to care.

“Unmitigated ass?“ His rough chuckle implied he was more bemused than angry at her unexpected insult. “So the lady _finally_ decides to fight back.”

This time she was the one to quickly glance behind her, and she saw he was now facing her side of the barn, clasping his trousers around his hips. She hadn’t meant to stare, but she couldn’t help but notice the lean muscles in his chest and stomach. When her gaze shifted upward and met a pair of highly amused green eyes, Brienne whipped her head back around to return to the wall.

She was surprised to hear him huff out a quiet sigh. “Look, it’s freezing, our clothes are soaked, and if we don’t get dry, being stuck in each other’s company will be the least of our worries.”

She heard his belt buckle softly thud against something, so Brienne had a pretty good idea that Jaime’s trousers had just joined the rest of his clothing.

“If you’re concerned about my making any untoward advances, you should know that I’m quite certain the sight of you in your knickers isn’t going to throw me into a mindless, lustful rage. Just take your kit off, so I don’t have to worry about dragging your beastly self to a hospital. I’m much too much of a delicate flower for that kind of manual labor.”

Gods, she wanted to tell him to shove off, but he was right about needing to get dry. They’d already been out of the rain for a good quarter hour, and she still couldn’t seem to keep from shivering.

She dubiously eyed the sheet-sized piece of tarp she’d uncovered when they first entered the building and decided wrapping her near nude body in a less-than-clean strip of plastic was still preferable to hypothermia.

Brienne threw another quick glance over her shoulder. “Turn around and face the other way.”

“You must be joking.”

“Face the wall!” She leveled her fiercest glare at him, despite the awkward angle. Unphased, he lowered his eyes to run down her tall form, his gaze lingering on where wet fabric clung to her body. Begrudgingly, he lowered his eyes.

She heard him grumbling as his feet shuffled along the floor. “You expect me to spend the entire night facing this direction?”

Only after waiting a few more moments did she finally start to pull off her clothes. She draped her ill-fitting jacket over what appeared to be an ancient saw horse, and her button-up followed as soon as she was able to control her fingers enough to get the front undone. It wasn’t until her mud-stained trousers joined her other clothes that she even remembered Jaime was there.

“Gods be good. Are those ruffled panties?”

“Seven hells,” she said under her breath and vowed never to let Margaery talk her into anything clothes-related ever again. True, it was her own fault for putting off doing the laundry for too long, but the blasted things wouldn’t have been an option if they’d never made it into her wardrobe in the first place. And why did they have to be white? She’d known they were ridiculous and practically see-through in the shop. She could only imagine the kind of show she was giving him now that the fabric was rain- dampened.

Brienne clenched her jaw so hard she could have sworn she actually heard her teeth grinding down. Before she could say anything she might regret, she stopped and took a breath.

“Did I not ask you to turn your back, Mr. Lannister?”

“Why yes, you did, Ms. Tarth,” he mirrored her polite address, “But since you were taking an inordinate amount of time, I assumed you were already hidden beneath whatever filthy, make-shift blanket I saw you digging out when we first got here. I never dreamed I’d still get to view so much of your strapping physique.”

Brienne was amazed she could actually hear him smirking and hated the unwanted blush that crept up into her cheeks. She pulled the tarp to her body and wrapped it around herself as casually and as best she could. The edges only just met, leaving her barely covered and struggling to remain so.

As far as insults went, his latest was nowhere near the worst she’d heard – from him or from others – but something about it rankled. He was so comfortable in his own skin, so confident, and it hurt to have to listen to him when she was literally so bare directly in front of him. He had no right to make her feel as though she were lacking.

She wasn’t the one who’d almost gotten them killed by a cow.

“You have no honor at all, do you?”

She finally turned around to see Jaime seated on the floor with his back and head against the wall and his elbows lightly resting on his bent knees. He didn’t seem to care that he was clothed only in a pair of dark boxers, nor did he seem to notice the cold, though now that Brienne was out of her wet things, she realized the temperature within the barn was actually quite comfortable, even nearly naked as she was.

His eyes once again met hers, and the silence between them seemed to stretch out for miles.

“I never said I did.”

There was no smirk accompanying his reply, and she wasn’t sure she liked this new expression any more than the one he usually wore around her.

Jaime’s gaze never left hers as she slowly slid to a seated position.

“This is the first time, you know?” he said.

“First time what, sir?”

“The first time you ever really talked back to me in a less than professional way.”

“I’m sorry, sir?”

“Sir,” he laughed without any humor. “Boss. Mr. Lannister. I think I like ‘unmitigated ass’ better, honestly.” His eyes seemed to catalog every detail of her face. “You’ve worked for Lannister Associates for how long, Brienne?”

“What?”

“How long have you worked for me?”

Four years, 10 months, and 15 days. She knew exactly how long she’d been with him, but for some reason she couldn’t explain, she didn’t want him to know that. “I’ve been with the company almost five years.”

He blew a long, high whistle. “That’s right. Almost five years.” He paused. “Jon. Sam. Davos. Bronn. The rest of the men you work with. You call them all by name, don’t you?”

“They’re my team. I work with them every day, and I trust them—“

“And you don’t trust me.”

“I didn’t say that.”

He arched a dark golden brow daring her to deny it further.

“You’re the boss.”

“Technically so is Tyrion, but I know you call him by name.”

“He’s asked us to call him Tyrion, plus he visits every site we’re working on. He’s best mates with Bronn for gods’ sakes.”

“And if I asked you to call me Jaime?”

“Then we would call you Jaime.”

“And if I asked you specifically to call me Jaime?”

For the first time since they’d locked eyes, Brienne looked away.

“Why do you always do that?”she muttered.

“Do what?”

It was too much. “Turn everything into a joke. Every time we’re in a room together it’s something. My hair, my teeth, my clothes. You think I don’t know what I look like? What I am? You think you’re the first person to get his jollies making fun?” She hadn’t raised her voice, but the break in her usual control was clear.

Jaime stared at her, stunned by her outburst.

“You act like it’s a surprise that I don’t trust you. Why would I?” Her hands furiously dashed away a few errant drops of rainwater that were sliding down the side of her jaw and throat.

“You think I’m just getting my ‘jollies’ and mocking you?”

Her gaze whipped back to his. “Are you really trying to say you’re not?”

They stared at one another as one minute rolled into the next. Blue eyes clashed with green, each silent combatant daring the other to speak first.

She was more than a little surprised when he surrendered control of the conversation with an almost imperceptible inclination of his head. “Fine. I do tease you when I see you—but you can’t really blame me, can you? You’re just so impervious to everything I say.” His face lit up with a sheepish grin. “Didn’t anyone ever tug on your pigtails when you were a tiny amazon? Perhaps I just wanted your attention.”

Men like Jaime Lannister never wanted her attention, at least not without some ulterior motive. She’d learned from experience that so-called revelations like these were rarely on the level. Even so, a very small part of her still wanted to believe that perhaps he was being honest.

“What are you, eight years old?” Brienne finally replied. As she spoke couldn’t help but feel her anger start to slip away. “Besides, I never wore my hair in pigtails.”

“That’s a pity.” His smirk seemed a little less smug. ”You never get angry, you never crack. You’re a wall of professionalism—well, except for tonight.”

“Fine. You’ve gotten lucky and succeeded in getting under my skin.”

Jaime’s body silently started shaking. It took her a moment to realize it was from laughter.

“God, you’re a child sometimes,” she successfully bit back her own laugh.

“Come on. That was a hilarious slip of the tongue.” He paused for just a moment. “And I wasn’t mocking you when I asked you to call me Jaime.”

“Sure.”

“I wasn’t.” His mouth tightened into a firm line. “Maybe for once I just wanted you to talk to me like you talk to everyone else. The men on your team – they like you. Hells, my brother likes you. They all do, and you seem to genuinely like them.” His right hand gesticulated wildly, aimlessly. “I know you’re good at the job. You’ve proven yourself time and again. But I see you laugh with your men—your team—and I don’t know _that_. In more than four years, I’ve never gotten to see that part of you.”

Again, the silence spread out between them. Brienne had no idea how to respond, and Jaime looked just as confused for having said anything at all.

“I’d never seen you in a suit before today, Brienne. I’m sorry it was ruined in the rain.”

She’d never been good with men like Jaime—charming men who seemed to speak some sort of coded language, but she knew he wasn’t really apologizing for her ruined jacket.

“Have dinner with me,” he said before she could think up a reply.

She shook her head, even more confused. “Do you have verbal Tourette’s, Lannister?”

“Do you have verbal Tourette’s, _Jaime_ , and wow, when you decide to leave professional courtesy by the wayside, you really go for it.”

For the first time in the entire day, a bark of laughter escaped her lips.

“Alright, then. What’s wrong with you, _Jaime_?” She leaned into his name, and for a moment, she felt a wave of something unfamiliar flow between them.

“Everything. So what’s your answer?”

Brienne had spent years avoiding being in the same place as him, and now he wanted to have dinner with her? Was she actually considering spending time with him after just one real conversation?

“Lunch. On a weekday. We split the bill.” There. She’d managed to make it clear she was only willing to consider a friendship with him.

“Dinner. On a Friday or Saturday. I pay. You wear a dress. I pick you up in my car…once it’s been retrieved from the damn ditch, anyway.”

“I am not wearing a dress!”

“Fine. No dress—I will never complain about nudity—but everything else is a go. It’s a deal.”

“Damnit, Lannister!”

“Damnit, Jaime if you please, Brienne.”

She shook her head trying to figure out how she’d been so easily manipulated. “This conversation isn’t over.”

“I should hope not. We’ve got hours before it’s light out again and our clothes are dry enough for us to continue on our search for civilization.”

“There really is something wrong with you,” but she couldn’t hold onto any of her usual animosity toward him.

Unable to resist, she gave him a shy smile as she relaxed against her side of the barn. His unrepentant grin was a welcome sight across the way.

“So what are the odds of me getting to see those fancy knickers again?”

“Don’t press your luck, Jaime,” she fired back almost before he finished speaking. Brienne couldn’t help but offer him her own smirk as she mentally made plans to meet up with Margaery as soon as possible for another bout of lingerie shopping. It was always a good idea to be prepared.

**Author's Note:**

> Massive thank you to the phenomenal [ikkiM](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ikkiM/pseuds/ikkiM) for beta reading and all the encouragement. This would have gone straight out the window without her.


End file.
